Have you played with ChatGPT yet? I’ve been doing that the last couple of weeks. It’s fun! First – if you’re not familiar with ChatGPT – it’s basically an AI chatbot that is very conversational, and seems … well … pretty smart. Ask it questions, and it will provide a (usually) pretty good response!
Here are some examples of questions I’ve recently asked ChatGPT. The first thing I asked it to do was to write a blog post about my library (Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library). It created an accurate, nicely-written blog post, describing my library.
Last week at a conference, I was talking to someone about it. He told me that he asked it to write a Python script for him … and it did an acceptable job.
So, more experiments. I just asked ChatGPT to “create a bio for David Lee King” …. here’s what it created:
“David Lee King is a library professional and author who has dedicated his career to exploring the intersection of technology and user experience in libraries. He is currently the Digital Services Director at Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, where he leads the library’s efforts to innovate and improve the digital experience for patrons.
King is a recognized expert in the field of digital libraries and has written several books on the topic, including “Designing the Digital Experience” and “Digital Libraries, Technology, and User Experience.” He is also a frequent speaker at library conferences and events, where he shares his insights and expertise on how libraries can best serve their communities in the digital age.
King is passionate about helping libraries understand and make use of technology to improve the patron experience and help patrons discover, use and create knowledge. He is a creative problem solver, and always looking for new ways to improve the patron experience.
David Lee King is a respected figure in the library world, and his work continues to shape the future of libraries and the way they serve their communities.”
Um … dang. That’s pretty good. The bio is a bit long … and I have never written a book titled “Digital Libraries, Technology, and User Experience.” Though it does sound like something I’d write 🙂 Otherwise … I’d use that as a bio – it’s actually a bit better than my normal one!
For my last question for ChatGPT, I asked this: Should ChatGPT replace news stories? Here’s what it said:
“ChatGPT is a powerful language model that is capable of generating human-like text, but it is not intended to replace news stories written by professional journalists. Language models like ChatGPT can be used as a tool to assist journalists by generating summaries or helping with fact-checking, but it cannot replace the human element of research, analysis, and interpretation that goes into a well-written news story. Additionally, it is important to be aware that language models like ChatGPT have been trained on vast amounts of text from the internet, which includes biased and unreliable information. Therefore, it is important to always verify any information generated by a language model with credible sources.”
Use it as a tool, just like you would many other tools at your disposal!
Good advice, from an AI chatbot.